With or Without You
by starnormand
Summary: 5x17 spoilers. 'Actions speak louder than words' is what they all say. However, the power of words shouldn't be underestimated, they can cut through your soul, something Lucas and Peyton will find out the hard way. Oneshot


**A/N:** I came up with this story in French class this morning and I wrote it while I should've been learning my Latin so booh OTH for making me ruin my future. ;) Anyway, I hope I did a good enough job with this because it's my first oneshot and so I'm not really used to it.

For the person who asked: the only spoilery content in here is the words Lucas says the night he gets drunk after the game, namely 'I hate you'. 'I wish you never came back.' 'You ruined my life.'

NOTHING more, the rest is all mine. ;)

Anyway...Enjoy and leave a review!

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**With or Without You**

His head pounded so hard he could swear he actually heard the pain. It was like a blunt hammer hitting a piece of wood. He didn't know how much exactly he had drunk last night, but he did still remember why. Lindsey Strauss, the woman who had left him at the altar not long ago phoned him with the message that she couldn't edit his book any longer because, like she said it: whatever he might claim, this book was about Peyton and it hurt her too much to read about his unconscious want, need and love for her.

He had been angry, furious, he recalled. After the game, Peyton had helped him get home, another thing he remembered. Suddenly his stomach twisted as he heard the words he had spoken to her last night like an echo in the room.

'I hate you'. 'I wish you never came back.' 'You ruined my life.'

He saw her hurt face as the words had sunk in flash in front his eyes again and now that the words sunk in with him, he felt the gravity of them. How could he have said he HATED her? Where had that come from? All these years he had convinced himself of the fact him and Peyton were nothing. Not love, but not hate either.

He wasn't the kind of person to hate, or at least he didn't used to be. Perhaps Peyton did change him somewhere. After she rejected his proposal, something simply broke inside of him. Having her reject him felt worse than knowing his own father hadn't wanted him. It did make him bitter towards her, he guessed.

Stumbling into his kitchen with the intention of grabbing himself a cup of coffee, his eye fell on a little note on the table. Curiously he picked it up and recognized Peyton's handwriting. He read her words and then put down the letter dazed. It was one of the most loathing letters he had ever held in his hands and it felt like a knife twisting in his heart.

He bowed his head and laid one hand in his hair. In that moment, it felt like all the world's misery descended onto his shoulders. He had blamed her for everything that had gone wrong in his life. Because she had come back, to Tree Hill, his life was ruined he had been sure. But now he finally saw the truth. It wasn't her who had screwed up his life, but he himself. It was all his fault. _He _had let her come between him and Lindsey and _he_ was the one who had written a book about her.

Yes, he admitted it to himself at last, on this hangover morning. He was the scientist, and Peyton was his comet. It had taken him hitting rock bottom to realize that what he wrote was their love story. Yet he had told her he hated her. Hate. She was his 'precious Peyton' as Brooke had once called her and he had stepped over her for months, beating her up emotionally and as she had been down. And she had taken it all, with grace. Because she loved him so damn much, despite everything.

If he had been honest, he had said he hated _himself _last night. He hated the person he had become. However the fact that she was the only one who could make or break him, who brought out the best and the worst in him, he hated even more. His life's happiness depended on her and he couldn't release himself of the grip she had had over him since he was nine years old. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much she had hurt him, no matter how much he had hurt her, it always came down to them.

The truth, _this_ truth, was the only thing he was left with now since he had chased away everything that was dear to him.

In this moment of clarity, he stood up, threw on his coat, and left the house to go beg Peyton on his two knees to forgive him for what he had become. He didn't expect her to give him another chance right now but maybe they could first rebuild their friendship and then see what gives. All he was certain about is that without Peyton his life was nothing. It was just bland. She – didn't matter if their relationship was shit or heaven-, she always made him feel alive. So he needed to be around her because his life felt dead right now.

x

The first thing he noticed were a bunch of cardboard boxes filled with records. The second was her slender figure. The moment she saw him, she took a step back. The glimmer in her eyes was hard, cold, hateful and her posture aggressive.

"Peyton…" he spoke bravely. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything I said last night."

She didn't say a word.

"I know what I'm about to say is, like, light years too late, but I made the wrong choice. Truth is, I think we're" he paused and took a deep breath "I think we're meant to be. Huh…Don't be scared. I don't expect anything more than friends from you; I just think I owe you an explanation." He briefly bowed his head and then stared back up in her eyes. "Peyton, I tried denying us for so long because…You have so much power over me you don't even realize it. And it scared me, and so I ran away from it. I ran to Lindsey, I ran to the altar and then I ran back to Lindsey. But Peyt…I only ran in circles. I can't escape my love for you no matter how hard I try. And I know I don't deserve your forgiveness but if you can find it in you heart to at least _try_, that would make me very happy. I just hope…_you_ don't hate me."

Her stare remained as frosty as before. She had had it. All she had ever gotten from Lucas Scott were empty promises and pain and humiliation and after last night she was sure: she'd never go back to him, she'd never let herself be treated like that again by him or any other guy. She had reached her limits. What she felt for him now wasn't compassion because he had had such a rough time or love or sympathy, she felt rage. Pure yet icely calm rage. Slowly she approached him.

"Standing here in front of you…" she began. "Looking at you…It literally makes me sick to my stomach. I look in your eyes and feel like throwing up. You know how I always said I don't ever feel regret for my actions, because it is in vain? Well, I think I lied because right now I regret I ever drove a fucking Comet. I regret I almost hit you with it and so met you. I regret that I believed you when you said my art mattered. I regret-"

Lucas stuck out his hand to lay it on his arm. Swiftly she yanked it away.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed. Hastily he pulled his hand back. "I regret you told me you wanted everything with me, I regret that I was foolish enough to believe it. I regret I left Jake for you, I regret that night you won the championship and we got together, and I regret our whole relationship after that."

He knew she could be a bitch, it's how he had gotten to know her. But this time it was different. It wasn't out of defense or fear; it seemed she really felt this way about him. Like all he had meant to her was six years wasted. He looked into her eyes still hopeful but had to look away. Not a trace of emotion. He had turned her heart into stone.

"So don't misunderstand this, Lucas," she continued. "I do hate you. And if you die right here and now, in front of my eyes, I wouldn't shed a tear."

"I love you…" he whispered. In that moment you could almost the see the shell around him, if you had a lively imagination but for once he was courageous enough to not disappear in it.

The 'I love you' was his only argument. He knew he had screwed up. He had ruined his life and taken away Peyton's trust in him but he realized it now and he was ready to change his life. However…What was the point if she didn't care about it anymore? What did it still matter than? He had diminished everything. He wasn't worthy of her anymore, he realized that all too well and yet she was the only thing still worth living for at this point.

In despair, he dropped himself on his knees, overcome by emotions and began to cry like a child. All that happened lately flowed out of his eyes in the form of tears. He batted his hands in front of his face and bowed over so that his knees rested on his upper legs. His whole body jolted as he was breaking down.

Peyton looked down at him as if he was a cockroach she'd like to trample most of all. Finally she turned around.

"Close the door on your way out."

x

"Shhhhh…." Brooke took Peyton in her arms and softly wiped the blond's moist cheeks. "You did right cutting him out of your life."

"I think he had an emotional breakdown," she sobbed. "And I just looked down at him and walked away. I was so angry…But Brooke, I've loved him so, so much and I can't help but still love him; he's a part of me. It feels like what I said to him, I said it to myself and it hurts so bad."

"I know, baby," she replied understanding. "But you know as much as I do Lucas Scott's words are worth less than shit."

She nodded. For a while they just sat in the couch, watching the fire in the fireplace dance until Brooke decided she'd have to go to bed or be a brain dead tomorrow. Peyton stayed up alone. A bit later she also got very tired and stood up from the couch. Before she went to brush her teeth, she decided to check the answering machine. Someone had called earlier but neither of them had picked up.

Immediately as she opened the message, she heard Lucas voice. She didn't delete it but just listened.

"Peyton…" it sounded like he was crying, maybe still from earlier. Desperately crying. "You're right. I'm nothing and you're right to treat me as nothing. I've hurt you I know and I hate myself for it. God, I could never hate you. You've always been _the_ woman in my life. I'm so sorry it took me vivid disasters or whatever you'd like to call it to realize. Now I've lost you forever. I've lost you in such a way you wished we had never met and even that I wasn't alive. That's horrible and it makes me feel like my existence is a mistake."

All the way through the message was interrupted by deep breathing and broken sobs and Peyton's eyes glazed over yet again.

"But see Peyt, what I realized today is that you're my other half and the one that I own is so dark, so dark," he sighed. "So if you don't care if I'm dead or if I'm alive, I don't think I do either. I just don't have the strenght anymore. You were the only thing I still had left. And I know it's selfish but I was hoping for you to save me out of this darkness…From the person I had become. Because like this, the way I am now, I can't live with myself. And I won't."

She felt as if she was hit by a sledgehammer.

"You remember that one day, Peyt? It was July and you had pulled me into the bush to, well, to do it?"

She smiled.

"And then after we just laid between the leaves and the dirt? It wasn't very hygienic, no but… I don't think I've ever felt more peaceful in my life. I knew then that if you were by my side all that happened before, all the shit, that it didn't matter. As long as I had you, doesn't matter in which way, everything would be OK."

A tear ran over her nose and hit the wooden cupboard the phone rested on.

"Just remember Peyt…That I love you and that it's always been you, despite my stupidity and my dumb, dumb actions, that it's always been us. You and me." A pause. "Now, I guess, there's nothing left to say but goodbye. So goodbye, Peyt. You've been everything to me and despite what you said earlier I hope you'll remember something of me despite the bad. I'll go believing that, that I meant more to you then pain and heartbreak."

The end.

She soon put her hand in front of her mouth in terror. He wasn't saying he would change his life for the better, he was talking about suicide. She ran outside and jumped into her car as fast as she could. In no time she arrived at Lucas house, cursing herself for what she had said earlier this evening. She had just wanted to hurt him as much as he had her but she had never wanted this. She ran into every room, screaming his name hysterically until she opened the bathroom door.

Her world stopped. There he was. His body was dangling lifelessly from a rope. He was pale as ghost. He had just hanged himself. She began to hyperventilate as she ran up to him, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she lifted his body with everything she had and removed the rope around his neck.

She laid her arm over him, her hand on his chest as she cried helplessly. With the shred of calmness she still had, she grabbed her cell phone and called an ambulance but she knew it was too late. He wasn't breathing anymore. His beautiful face didn't contain any sign of life anymore. His roughened hand lay limp in hers. He was just dead.

Over the years, his uncle had died, he had been left at the altar and his career was in a dip but _she_ was the one who had pushed him to do this. No deaths, no 'runaway brides', no failing books. It was _her_.

Then it hit her: it wasn't _her _who loved _him_ more than he loved her. It was the other way around. She hadn't been able see it; he had closed himself off the night she said 'someday' and she simply hadn't been able to read him since then. Unknowingly, she had caused him more pain than she would've ever be able to understand. In the moment she didn't agree to spend her life with him, it must've been like Dan all over again. A little boy who wasn't wanted. She had been worse than Dan, hadn't she? The night she ran away, the evening she walked away and the evening she said 'someday'. She had left him more than anyone.

Sliding her hand away from his, she now laid it in his neck and leaned her cheek against the side of his head while slowly rocking back and forward with his body in her arms. "I didn't mean it," she wept taken over by guilt, regret and intense sorrow. "I didn't mean ANY of it. You're the love of my life. You were opening up again…You were telling me what you felt but I was too proud…" She kissed his forehead. "I was too proud…"

Lucas had been a tortured, insecure soul. It had been something he was destined to be from the moment he was born. If only she indeed hadn't stepped back into his life. All he had ever tried since that ominous night in LA was getting over her because he couldn't handle the effect she had on him. It had troubled him so deeply that she could make him reach extremely high peaks and awfully low depths. He knew it wasn't healthy. She should've known he was scared for that and that he never _didn't_ love her. He had just been afraid of being abandoned yet again and the life he had led before she stepped back into it had been safe, like a nest.

When they had first made love in Honeygrove, she knew they had something unique and really special. It was something only the two of them could understand. It wasn't just happiness or even bliss; it was completeness. Something so very intense, something you experience but once in a lifetime. So he could have never had that with Lindsey, it was with her. However, the same intensity had scared him lately and now eventually meant his downfall as he lay dead in her arms.

She pressed kisses all over his face like she had done the day she went to visit him at the hospital, when they were sneaking around. He didn't react now. He didn't kiss her back, didn't take her in his arms and he didn't press his lips on her forehead. So she just laid him down and snuggled up to his still body, pretending like they had never moved on from junior year and that all the bad hadn't happened.

Though she had lied earlier. She didn't regret _anything_ with him. Not even all the pain he had caused her, because it was part of her story with him. He was the first boy who cared. The boy who believed in her. The boy who had opened her eyes to make her see life is what you make of it. The boy who had given her her first weak-in-your-knees kiss. The boy she had listened to Dashboard Confessional with. The boy who made her favorite food taste yummier. The boy who had brought her to tears when they made love, simply because she had felt whole for the first time in her life. The boy who had given her more love than she had ever known a person could give. The boy she would've married someday. The boy she would've given a bunch of blue-eyed, blond-haired children. The boy she had imagined to have matching rocking chairs with, later when they would be old and wrinkly yet still madly in love with each other. The boy she had loved and would _always_ love.

The boy who in the end simply couldn't live _with_ or _without_ her.


End file.
